Kibaraka is a folktale sourced from the Swahili, published in late 19th century. Linguist Jan Knappert published a very similar tale with the title The Giant Horse, wherein the protagonist is also named Kibaraka. In both, a youth named Kibaraka gets entangled with a cannibal sorcerer and escapes thanks to a giant horse's help; also with the giant horse's help, he reaches another city, where he marries a princess and performs heroic feats.
The story is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as ATU 314, "Goldener" (previously, "The Youth Transformed to a Horse"), in a cycle that begins with the protagonist working for the antagonist and escaping from him on a talking horse.
Summary Alice Werner's summary Author Alice Werner provided a summary of the story, which she considered to be "a composite tale", and some of its parts diffused along with Arab influence.Werner, Alice. Myths and Legends of the Bantu. London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1933. pp. 315, 317. In this tale, a sultan's son and a vizier's son are born on the same day, become friends, but the sultan's son abandons his friend in the wilderness during a walk. The vizier's son is found by a zimwi, who welcomes the boy into his lair and instructs him not to open a certain door, and goes to invite his friends for a cannibal feast. The vizier's son open the forbidden door and finds a giant horse inside, which warns him the zimwi is a cannibal, and urges the boy to release every animal in the house (an ox, a lion, a leopard and a donkey), steal seven magic bottles and escape with it away from the zimwi's lair. The horse swallows the animals to take along with him, and escapes with the boy in a "Magic Flight" sequence: the seven bottles are thrown behind them to create obstacles to their pursuers (thorns, rock, swords, water, fire, sea).
The giant horse and the boy reach a remote destination, and the animal creates a large house for them. The boy assumes the identity of "Kibaraka" ('Little Blessing') and dresses up as a beggar. He goes to a nearby city just in time to take part in a suitor selection test: the local sultan's seven daughters are to throw limes to their husbands of choice, the elder six cast theirs to noble men and the seventh to Kibaraka. Later, the sultan falls ill, and only leopard's milk can cure him. Kibaraka's brothers-in-law fail to procure the milk, when they sight Kibaraka, whom they do not recognize, and agree to a deal: the milk for branding their backs. Next, Kibaraka, riding the giant horse into battle, battles the sultan's, his father-in-law, enemies. He then reveals himself as Hamed, son of the Wazir of the land of Basra.Swahili stories from Arab sources, with an English translation. Zanzibar: [ca. 1881]. pp. 27-48 (in Swahili). Based on Kibaraka's words, being in Arabic, Werner supposed the story was brought from the Arabs to the Swahili coast.
Jan Knappert's version In Knappert's version, translated as The Giant Horse, the youth, also named Kibaraka, is walking somewhere when a spirit takes him to his castle and gives him a set of keys, forbidding the youth to open the doors in the cellar, otherwise, he will devour the human. With this, the spirit departs, leaving Kibaraka alone in the spirit's lair. Kibaraka opens the doors in the castle: he finds a talking self-moving sword in the first one; a talking, self-moving dagger in the second one; a talking lioness to which he gives some meat, and finally a talking leopard to which he also gives meat. His curiosity is piqued, and he goes down to the castle cellar to see what is hiding down there: a giant horse, which talks to Kibaraka and says they can still escape if the youth feeds it. After eating some fodder, the horse advises Kibaraka to take with him seven bottles: sea bottle, mud bottle, fire bottle, thorn bottle, pebble bottle, needle bottle and creeper bottle. The horse tells Kibaraka to release people and the many species of cattle (goats, oxen, sheep, donkey), which the giant horse swallows.
Soon, Kibaraka is riding the giant horse away from the spirit's castle, taking with him the seven bottles. On the road, Kibaraka notices a dustcloud is moving behind them, which the horse explains it is the spirit and his friends. The animal then tells Kibaraka to throw behind him the bottles they pilfered from the castle, each bottle creating a magic obstacle to hinder their pursuers: the creeper bottle releases a forest of creeper and lianas; the thorn bottle creates a forest of thorns, the needle bottle manifests many large needles; the mud bottle creates swamps and bogs; the pebble bottle creates a huge mountain to block the pursuers' path, and the fire bottle creates a bush fire. Each large obstacle manages to deter and kill the chasing spirits, leaving only one. Finally, the youth releases the sea bottle, which creates a vast ocean between Kibaraka and the horse and the last spirit, which cannot cross the body of water.
At a safe distance, the horse stops near a mansion, where they settle: the horse opens its mouth to release the cattle they stole from the castle, and Kibaraka sells some animals to earn money. Some time later, in a nearby kingdom, the sultan arranges for his seven daughters' marriage: by throwing lemons to their suitors of choice, they are to make their selection of husbands. The six elder princesses throws their to youths of high status (the first to the son of the chief vizier and the second one to the chief cadi, for instance), but the youngest princess's lemon is caught by Kibaraka. The sultan learns Kibaraka is a lowly donkey-seller, so the princess repeats her lemon-throwing twice again, and again Kibaraka catches it. Resigning to her daughter's fate by Allah's will, the sultan marries her to Kibaraka and moves her out to the youth's house. Despite his brothers-in-law mocking the union and her sister pitying her, the princess discovers Kibaraka's house is actually furnished with cattle and servants (people who he and the Giant Horse rescued from the spirit).
Some time later, the king falls ill, and only the milk of a lioness can cure him. His six sons-in-law are too afraid to ride into the wilderness in search of a lioness, when Kibaraka appears in court with a bottle of lioness's milk, which the lioness he rescued gave him. Later, the king falls ill again, and only milk from a leopard can cure him. Again, the six sons-in-law are too afraid to hunt for a leopard, when Kibaraka enters with a bottle of leopard's milk, which the leopard he rescue from the spirit gave him. Next, war breaks out, and heathen armies come out of the wilderness to surround the realm. The sultan's six sons-in-law ride into battle, but fearing for their lives, they flee, so it is up to Kibaraka, riding a leopard and brandishing the magic sword and dagger, to defeat the enemy army and save the day. War continues for a while longer, and Kibaraka rides a lion on the second day, still wielding the sword and dagger, which vanquish the enemies. The six sons-in-law brag to the king they were the ones who defeated the enemy army, but a servant reveals to the sultan that a mysterious knight was the one responsible. The sultan, then, decides to see it for himself, and goes to the battlefield the next morning: Kibaraka, whom the sultan does not recognize, rides into battle with the giant horse and holding the sword and dagger, defeating the enemies for good. The sultan's soldiers intercept the knight and bring him to the sultan, who recognizes the knight as Kibaraka, the same one that provided the remedies for him. For this, the sultan makes Kibaraka his successor.Knappert, Jan. Myths & legends of the Swahili. Heinemann Educational Books, 1970. pp. 198-203. .
Analysis Tale type The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as type ATU 314, "The Goldener": a youth with golden hair works as the king's gardener. The type may also open with the prince for some reason being the servant of an evil being, where he gains the same gifts, and the tale proceeds as in this variant.
Introductory episodes Scholarship notes three different opening episodes to the tale type: (1) the hero becomes a magician's servant and is forbidden to open a certain door, but he does and dips his hair in a pool of gold; (2) the hero is persecuted by his stepmother, but his loyal horse warns him and later they both flee; (3) the hero is given to the magician as payment for the magician's help with his parents' infertility problem.Bolte, Johannes; Polívka, Jiri. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm. Dritter Band (NR. 121–225). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1918. p. 97.Uther, Hans-Jörg (2004). The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography, Based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica. p. 198. .Dammann, Günter. "Goldener (AaTh 314)". In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Band 5: Fortuna – Gott ist auferstanden. Edited by Rudolf Wilhelm Brednich; Hermann Bausinger; Wolfgang Brückner; Helge Gerndt; Lutz Röhrich; Klaus Roth. De Gruyter, 2016 . pp. 1373-1374. . Folklorist Christine Goldberg, in Enzyklopädie des Märchens, related the second opening to former tale type AaTh 532, "The Helpful Horse (I Don't Know)", wherein the hero is persecuted by his stepmother and flees from home with his horse.Goldberg, Christine. "Pferd: Das hilfreiche Pferd (AaTh 532)". In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Band 10: Nibelungenlied – Prozeßmotive. Edited by Rudolf Wilhelm Brednich; Hermann Bausinger; Wolfgang Brückner; Helge Gerndt; Lutz Röhrich; Klaus Roth. De Gruyter, 2016 . p. 933. . https://www.degruyter.com/database/EMO/entry/emo.10.177/html
American folklorist Barre Toelken recognized the spread of the tale type across Northern, Eastern and Southern Europe, but identified three subtypes: one that appears in Europe (Subtype 1), wherein the protagonist becomes the servant to a magical person, finds the talking horse and discovers his benefactor's true evil nature, and acquires a golden colour on some part of his body; a second narrative (Subtype 3), found in Greece, Turkey, Caucasus, Uzbekistan and Northern India, where the protagonist is born through the use of a magical fruit; and a third one (Subtype 2). According to Toelken, this Subtype 2 is "the oldest", being found "in Southern Siberia, Iran, the Arabian countries, Mediterranean, Hungary and Poland". In this subtype, the hero (who may be a prince) and the foal are born at the same time and become friends, but their lives are at stake when the hero's mother asks for the horse's vital organ (or tries to kill the boy to hide her affair), which motivates their flight from their homeland to another kingdom.Toelken, Barre. "The Icebergs of Folktale: Misconception, Misuse, Abuse". In: Carol L. Birch and Melissa A. Heckler, eds. Who Says? – Essays on Pivotal Issues in Contemporary Storytelling. Little Rock, Arkansas: August House Publishers, 1996. pp. 42-43.
Motifs The Obstacle Flight According to Stith Thompson, tale type ATU 314 contains the motif of the "Obstacle Flight" (a form of the "Magic Flight"): the hero escapes from an antagonist (e.g., an ogre), and throws behind him objects to deter his pursuers, each object transforming into a magical obstacle to hinder the pursuit, like a fire or a lake.Werner, Alice. Myths And Legends Of The Bantu. London: George G. Harrap & Co. LTD. 1932. pp. 212, 316.
The suitor selection test